


Zombies in the Park are Looking for my Heart

by notanerd04



Category: Julie and The Phantoms (TV)
Genre: Angst, Arguments, BAMF Julie Molina, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Panic Attacks, Protective Julie Molina, Reggie Has Bad Parents (Julie and The Phantoms), Reggie-centric (Julie and The Phantoms), as he should, before its chill my boy reggie must go through things, luke and alex do bad things but they feel bad and apologize and its chill, references to violence, reggie loves teen beach movie, sad reggie
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-07
Updated: 2020-12-07
Packaged: 2021-03-09 21:42:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,967
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27933277
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/notanerd04/pseuds/notanerd04
Summary: Alex and Luke didn't mean to be so loud or angry, but that doesn't mean Reggie's not going to react to it badly.  Because for Reggie, people fighting means he's going to get hurt.
Relationships: Alex & Julie Molina & Luke Patterson & Reggie, Alex & Luke Patterson (Julie and The Phantoms), Alex & Reggie (Julie and The Phantoms), Julie Molina & Reggie, Julie Molina/Luke Patterson, Luke Patterson & Reggie (Julie and The Phantoms), Reggie & his parents, if you squint
Comments: 7
Kudos: 208





	1. If I Could Find A Way To See This Straight I'd Run Away

**Author's Note:**

> Hello to the phandom!! I have been reading so many amazing and wonderful fanfictions for Julie and the Phantoms recently that I thought I'd take a stab at writing one myself. And because I am me, it got very dark, very fast. This focuses on Reggie, because I love him, and what do you with the characters you love? Hurt them, of course. So, before you get into this, MAJOR TRIGGER WARNING for panic attacks and child abuse.
> 
> I hope you all enjoy! 
> 
> Story and chapter titles are from Cough Syrup by Young The Giant

It was the little things that Reggie couldn’t stop himself from doing that Julie caught on to. Behind his big, bold, dumbass personality, he had reactions that betrayed what thoughts were really going through his head. 

The tension in his jaw when Tia Victoria stormed into the house to reprimand Julie for whatever minor thing she had done this time. 

His shaking hands quickly tucked into his pockets when Carlos dropped a glass as he dried it off, causing it to shatter on the floor. 

The way his eyebrows crinkled as he ran his thumb over his knuckles when Flynn playfully shoved Julie.

The flash of fear in his eyes when Ray whipped off his belt to comfortably sit down for a Molina family movie night.

Reggie thought he hid it well from her. Luke and Alex already knew, of course. They found out back when they were alive. It’s not hard to figure it out when your parents are notoriously violent arguers and you show up to practice an hour late with a black eye and blood matted in your hair.

Still, Reggie hadn’t even seen his parents since his death. Could he have probably done some more to look for his family after seeing his childhood home turned into a bike shack? Yes. Did he particularly want to?

Now that was another question.

He had found a family in Luke and Alex, even Bobby, then Julie. And his relationship with his parents had always been rocky. He didn’t need anybody but his bandmates, his brothers and sister.

Because bandmates didn’t yell, they didn’t throw things at him, they didn’t make him want to curl up in the corner of his closet between the shelf and the wall with his jacket pulled tight around his shoulders and block out the world.

Reggie honestly thought he’d been getting better, but really Luke and Alex had gotten better at hiding their worry. None of them wanted to upset Julie, but they’d miscalculated their friend’s perceptiveness.

When the lines of worry crossed Alex’s forehead, she noticed.  
When Luke’s typically focused stare faltered, glancing over toward his dark-haired friend every couple seconds, she noticed.

And she wanted to help, she really really did.

But she couldn’t do anything until Reggie let her in. And Reggie didn’t want to talk about it. He wasn’t so good at the serious, because the serious came with the bad memories. He didn’t really understand it, because talking about Luke’s serious, or Alex’s, or Julie’s was fine, but his own serious was off-limits. 

So Julie laughed with him, loved with him, watched Disney movies as they fell asleep together on the couch. 

(Seriously, why did Reggie love Teen Beach Movie so much?)

(He wanted to be Butchy.)

(She’d walked in on him doing the Cruisin' for a Bruisin’ dance multiple times. And Alex was supposed to be the dancer?)

Julie waited for him to open up.

He just couldn’t. As much as he wanted to just let it all spill out every time something even mildly triggering happened, he couldn’t move the words from his brain to his mouth. He supposed it came from never really actually saying it out loud before. Back in the ’90s, Luke, Alex, and Bobby had kind of just figured it out. They’d heard the arguing, so when the injuries started it wasn’t a hard leap to make.

Sometimes he really missed sleeping on the couch in Bobby’s room when things got bad, even if Trevor was a complete dick now.

After months of silent worry, Julie didn’t think she’d find out because of Luke and Alex.

It had all started after a long month filled with a ton of gigs that had left Julie’s school work piling up, Alex yearning to go off and spend more time with Willie, and the whole band needing to take a couple of days to just relax.

On that early Saturday morning, Julie and her Phantoms sat in the garage, rehearsing a new song for a gig they had that night. It just seemed like none of them could get their heads on the same wavelength. Julie’s eyes were unfocused as she tried to catch up on a bit of math homework while Luke and Reggie tried to tighten up some riffs, and Alex was on a whole different planet. Luke was getting more and more frustrated when he kept making the same tiny little mistake.  
“Luke! Calm down!” Julie called from across the garage. “I can feel your stress radiating off you from all the way over here.” 

“Yeah, you need to chill out a bit man,” Reggie added, trying to defuse some tension.

“I just, I can’t, ugh!” Luke groaned with frustration, rolling his shoulders back. “Let’s just take it from the top and see where it goes.”

Julie sang the intro and verse, beautiful as always, but when they got to the chorus where the boys were supposed to pop in, Alex came in just a four-count too early, and that was all it took to set Luke completely off.

“Alex!” he shouted, louder than Julie had ever heard him speak. “You’re completely wrong! If you do that it’ll ruin the entire freaking set!” 

“Well if you can’t get your riff right, the bridge isn’t going to work and the whole song’s going to be off,” Alex retorted, standing up in a huff.

The two continued to argue, progressively getting more intense, as Julie’s attention turned to Reggie. The bassist was slowly backing away from his friends as his breathing quickened, his arms wrapping around his chest in an effort to comfort himself.

Then Alex threw his drumsticks on the floor, and Luke slapped the table, and Reggie couldn’t hold anything back as the memories of the vases flying over or into his head ran to the front of his mind. White-hot tears of fear ran down his cheeks as his chest constricted and his throat choked up with sobs. Reggie stumbled to the floor and quickly scurried into the small gap between a couch and a chair, making his body as small as possible. Julie made out a strained “No, dad please-” from in between his legs and saw red.

Julie Molina would be damned if she ever let one of her boys stay like that.

Luke and Alex’s voices finally stopped when they both turned around and were met with her icy glare. They finally noticed their bandmate crying on the ground, and their eyes widened, horrified by what they had done.

“Get out,” Julie professed in a dangerously calm voice. “I don’t care where you go, but fix your issues somewhere that’s not here.” 

“But-” Alex started to protest, taking a step towards Reggie, ready to step into the role he used to carefully play.

“No. Out. I’ve got this, and you two idiots have done enough today.”

With one last shameful glance towards their panicked bandmate, Luke and Alex poofed away.  
Careful as to not make too much noise, Julie delicately moved the chair Reggie had been tucked next to a foot away as to make space for her in his little corner. This was sure to be one of the times where she’d be incredibly grateful she could touch the boys now.

Julie started slowly rubbing circles on the part of Reggie’s back she could reach, thinking back to how her mom would do the same for her when she got nervous or stressed. Slowly but surely, she felt Reggie’s mind come back to the present and into the safety of the garage. The tears still dripped down his face, but when he finally looked up, she could see that he was no longer with the demons in his head.

“Oh, Reg,” she said softly, letting him melt into her arms. He buried his head into her shoulder, and she sat and held him, letting his tears soak her shirt as he learned how to breath again.

As his eyes dried up and his chest began to move normally again, they transitioned into sitting side by side, with their backs pressed up against the wall. Reggie began to pick at his fingernails.

“You don’t have to tell me anything if you don’t want to,” Julie gently reassured her friend, once she was more confident in his ability to speak. Reggie sighed.

“No, you have a right to know. I was going to tell you eventually anyway, I just could never figure out the right thing to say. I didn’t actually tell the boys last time around, they just figured it out,” He let out a dry chuckle that morphed into a small cough. Julie just nodded, the simple gesture telling Reggie that he was in a safe space and could say whatever he needed. “You’re really lucky to have Ray, you know. He’s so kind and caring, and he supports you no matter what. I like hanging around with him because, well, I never really got that type of warmth from a parent.”

Julie’s heart broke as Reggie took a deep breath, contemplating where to go next.

“My parents, they, they used to fight. A lot. Not just words,” He ran his fingers through the side of his hair, feeling where the scar on his head sat hidden, patched up with shaky, makeshift care from Luke’s dad before he had run away. “There was a lot of throwing things. And when they ran out of things they didn’t like about each other to fight about, well, they would turn to me. Who’s fault is it we ended up with a shoddy musician for a son, who’s fault is it that he likes to hang around with that gay drummer kid, who’s fault is it that Reggie got a B on his history test last week, cause, you, you know, Reggie, Reggie’s gotta be perfect. I got an 87,” He laughed hollowly. “My dad threw a vase at my head once. And my mom was particularly fond of breaking things in my room. We learned to keep all my music stuff here at the studio pretty quickly once it started getting bad. And sometimes, when my dad, when he had a lot of pent up rage, he’d make me take my shirt off, and he’d take off his belt and he’d, he’d,”

Reggie stopped, closing his eyes and living in the memory. A tear escaped Julie’s eye. No one, especially not her sweet, dorky, caring, wonderful Reggie should have to go through this.  
“I’ve just never really done well with yelling and throwing things since then. And I know Luke and Alex don’t mean it. You should have seen the amount of times we had to keep Luke from just decking my dad. And when I was staying with him for a bit, Bobby once had a box of elephant shit delivered to their doorstep.” Reggie smiled fondly at that recollection, his normal goofiness making his red rimmed eyes seem even more out of place.

After careful consideration of what to say, Julie finally responded to Reggie’s mini monologue.

“Thank you, Reg. I’m really touched that you trusted me enough to be willing to share something like that.”

“You’re Julie. It only seems fair. And it was a lot easier than I thought it was going to be.” He reached out and squeezed her hand. He wasn’t quite sure whether he or she needed the reassurance they were there more. “You know, dying might have been the best thing that ever happened to me.”

“What do you mean?” Julie asked, confused.

“Well, I’m just saying. Dying got me out of that house. Plus, we would have never met you,” he explained, putting his head on her shoulder.

“Dying might suck, but I’m glad I got to meet you all too. You’d be 40 years old, ugly, and have no idea who I am,” she teased, glad Reggie was feeling a bit more like himself again.

“Hey! I think I’d be a very attractive 40-year-old. And we would have found out who you are when you rose to mega super popularity.” 

Julie grinned at the compliment.

“I’m willing to make a special exception to the no ghosts in my bedroom rule. Want to go watch Teen Beach Movie in my bed?” She asked.

“Oh, you really know how to cheer a ghost up!” Reggie exclaimed, delight flashing through his eyes.

Julie laughed and stood up, offering her hand to the boy. When he stood up, he readjusted his jacket, wiped off the last residual tears from his cheeks, and offered his arm to Julie. Arm in arm, they made their way into the house and curled up in Julie’s bed as she brought up Disney+ on her laptop. For those two hours, their life and death were as good as they needed to be.


	2. I Run Now to the Things They Say Could Restore Me

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was going to be a one-shot, but I didn't want to leave Alex and Luke in the doghouse without giving them a chance to apologize. Hence, two-shot. The band's gotta make up at some point, because after all, they're family.

It took them twenty minutes on the pier, but Alex and Luke came to their senses and apologized to each other. They both came to the understanding that tensions had just been running high, but nothing could drive a permanent wedge into their brotherhood. 

With their own anger gone, nothing was left to mask the deep regret they felt for triggering Reggie.

No one deserved to have gone through what Reggie did, and the fact that Alex and Luke, people who were supposed to stand by him and protect him no matter what, the fact that it was them who brought out such an emotional, heartbreaking reaction from Reggie was tearing at their unalive souls.

When they poofed back outside of the studio, a quick glance through the windows told them Julie and Reggie weren’t in there and it was safe to enter, their presence wouldn’t do anything to upset their friend even more.

With a sigh, Luke flopped down on the couch, and began futzing with the cuffs of his flannel. Alex picked up his abandoned drum sticks and started absentmindedly flipping them around in his hands. Their remorse hung heavy in the air.

After an hour and a half of silent stewing, Reggie and Julie finally walked back into the garage. 

Alex had been scared Julie wouldn’t be able to fill his shoes as mom friend and protector extraordinaire, but the easy, relaxed smile on Reggie’s lips told him that perhaps she was better at it than he ever was. Especially when Reggie’s gaze flickered over to him, and the smile quickly dropped.

Luke, forever the apologizer, immediately rushed forward when the pair entered the garage.

“God, Reggie, we’re so sorry. I don’t know what came over me, but you gotta believe me, I never meant to upset you. That’s the last thing I wanted to do! And of course I know about all the stuff with your parents, and I didn’t mean to bring up all those memories, and I’m just so freaking sorry, dude, please, please forgive me-”

“Luke. You’re rambling,” Julie cut him off before he could go on any longer. Luke looked down, kind of looking like a puppy who knows it’s in trouble. He pressed his lips together, not allowing any more of the anxious apologies swirling in his mind to cross his mouth.

“I’m sorry too, Reggie. I think we were all stressed and needed a break from practice. That’s no excuse though. We really didn’t mean to trigger you,” Alex added on nervously. Reggie smiled lightly.

“It’s ok guys. I can separate you from my parents. The shouting and throwing just caught me off guard,” Reggie responded, reaching out to squeeze Luke’s hand in reassurance.

Alex and Luke finally let out a sigh of release and let the tension they had been holding in their shoulders out. Julie made a decision.

“I’m gonna talk to Flynn and tell her we need a weekend off after the gigs we already have booked. We can go on like a little mini staycation. I think we just need a week to relax and blow off some steam. You could even invite Willie if you want, Alex,” she offered, as all four of them dropped onto the couch, limbs entangled. Her head rested exhausted on Luke’s chest and he began twisting one of her curls in his fingers. Another small smile graced Reggie’s face as Alex pulled his legs onto his lap. 

“A break sounds nice,” Reggie murmured, closing his eyes.

“Definitely,” Alex agreed.

“I didn’t know ghosts could get so tired considering we don’t have to sleep,” Luke whispered.

“I could definitely use that feature of your ghosthood right now. I have so much freaking precalc homework to do and no idea how to do it,” Julie complained. “And as comfortable as this is, we still need to practice for tonight.”

“I can help you with your math,” Reggie suddenly offered. When Julie’s head snapped over to look at him, he asked, “What? I was always really good at math. It just kind of clicked for me.”

“It’s true. I always cheated off his tests,” Alex affirmed. “I was god awful at solving equations.”

“I didn’t peg that for either of you, but I guess if you’re offering I’ll take it. But really guys, we should practice,” she said, pulling Luke up off the couch to stand with her.

“Let’s take it from the top,” he responded.

Finally, the four members of Julie and the Phantoms were back in sync with each other. After a great practice, they played an amazing show that night. It would be remembered as one of their best, even catching the attention of a powerful music manager.

But even more important than having their music, Julie and her emotional support dead guys had each other. And really, even more than their whole ghost/hologram thing, that was what made their performances magical.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> That's the end of Zombies in the Park are Looking for my Heart! I hope you enjoyed it, and if you feel inclined, please leave a kudo or a comment! It always makes me super happy to know people are enjoying what I write. Till next time folks!

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much for reading, and I really hope you enjoyed it!


End file.
